Saturday, October 6, 2012

With Halloween approaching I thought it timely to discuss
Horror and Slasher Films. I've been shocked in the past twenty years at the
plethora of these films that have graced our theatre and television screens. It
seems nearly half of the movies made fit this genre.

The problem with lumping these two categories together, however, is that
‘horror’ is really nothing like ‘slasher’. True horror movies involve an aspect
of the psychological: Psycho, House on Haunted Hill, Rose Red. They don’t
produce scares just for the sake of making the viewer jump. Slasher films, on
the other hand, are made just for that purpose. How many times can we make the
viewer scream, cover their eyes, jump. For that reason I don’t attend slasher
films. I only enjoy going to true horror movies. It’s upsetting to me that the
majority of ‘horror’ movies these days are slashers. It’s demeaning to the
audience for producers to think that viewers don’t want intelligent horror.

I’m going to age myself here, as though you couldn’t guess from my pictures
anyway, but when I was about twelve-years-old The Birds by
Alfred Hitchcock came out. I was babysitting my sister, five years younger, and
we watched it. Alone. Just the two of us. BIG MISTAKE. We woke each other
during the night for bathroom company (which was about three feet from our
bedroom door) for at least two months afterward. That was the scariest movie I
had ever seen.

I had my own children watch it about ten years ago. While they enjoyed the
classic nature and awesome direction that was Hitchcock, they weren’t exactly
scared. Although the younger ones searched the sky whenever traveling from
house to car or vice versa.

That is what has happened to the current generation of teens and twenties. They
are completely desensitized to horror, gore, violence. Don’t even get me
started on video games!

As with all movie genres there are good films and bad to awful films.
While researching this I gave it some thought and have categorized the
following Horror to A-little-Scary movies into GOOD or NOT SO GOOD according to
MY subjective movie-goer senses. If a movie has some psychology behind the
scare or is based on actual events, it gets my thumb up. But violence and gore
for the sake of it – no go.

The following sites have good info on horror/slasher films:
http://www.best-horror-movies.com/horror-movie-on-dvd.html
http://www.onlygoodmovies.com/good/movies/horror/

GOOD SCARY MOVIES

1408

28
Days Later

28
Weeks Later

30
Days of Night

Alien(s)

Amityville
Horror (original)

Blair
Witch Project 1

Burnt
Offerings

Candyman

Carrie
(original)

Coraline

Cube

Dawn
of the Dead

Deliverance

Desperation

Bram
Stoker’s Dracula (original)

Event
Horizon

Exorcism
of Emily Rose

Fallen

Four
Horsemen

Frankenstein

Haunting
in Connecticut

I Am
Legend

Interview
With a Vampire

Invasion
of the Body Snatchers (original)

Jaws

Misery

Mothman
Prophecy

Mouth
of Madness

Ninth
Gate

Nosferatu

Panic
Room

Pan's
Labyrinth

Planet
of the Apes

Poltergeist

Psycho

Quarantine

Resident
Evil

Ringu

Rose
Red

Rosemary's
Baby

Salem's
Lot

Seven

Shutter
Island

Silence
of the Lambs

Sleepy
Hollow

Stir
of Echoes

Storm
of the Century

Sweeney
Todd

Texas
Chainsaw Massacre (original)

The
Birds

The
Blob

The
Descent

The
Devil’s Backbone

The
Exorcist

The
Fly (w/ Jeff Goldblum)

The
Howling

The
Langoliers

The
Legend of Hell House

The
Mummy

The
Omen

The
Orphanage

The
Other

The
Others

The
Ring 1

The
Serpent and the Rainbow

The
Shining

The
Stand

The
Thing

The
Unborn

Underworld
(series)

Untraceable

What
Lies Beneath

White
Noise

Zodiac
Killer

Zombieland

Some things to remember about these lists. They are
subjective to the viewer - ME. I have seen most of the movies on the bad list
and while I enjoyed them at the time or at least sat through them at least
once, I didn't consider them worthy of being called GOOD. The plot was weak,
the characterization was weak or non-existent, the ending was lame. You get the
point. But there is no reason not to see them just because I put them on my bad
list. I love B-rated movies, especially those on the SyFy Channel, but some of
these don’t even stand up to my low standards.

NOT SO GOOD or TOO EVIL/DEMONIC SCARY MOVIES (doesn't mean I haven't watched
them all)

13
Ghosts

2001
Maniacs

Alien
3 & Resurrection

Arachnophobia

Black
Christmas

Cabin
Fever

Children
of the Corn

Chucky

Cloverfield
(made me nauseated)

Drag
Me to Hell

Exorcist
2

Final
Destination (all)

Friday
the 13th (all)

Ghost
Ship

Grindhouse
(both)

Halloween
(all)

Hellraiser

Hostel

House
of Wax

I Know
What You Did Last Summer

It!

Jaws
the Revenge

Joy
Ride (all)

My
Bloody Valentine

Nightmare
on Elm Street

Pet
Semetary

Piranha

Prom
Night

Pterodactyl

Rest
Stop

Return
of the Living Dead

Saw
(all)

Scream

Silent
Hill

Texas
Chainsaw Massacre

The
Grudge (all)

The
Hills Have Eyes

Wickerman

Wrong
Turn (all)

Here is a listing of Scary stories based on actual events. While I’m not saying
these films are GOOD, they are at least interesting from that aspect.